“Did you hear that?” I asked, sitting up straighter.
“Hear what?” Daydream asked puzzled.
“I could have sworn I heard a call for help.” I strained to hear anything besides the mist moving. “I guess I was wrong.”
“No. Which way do you think it was coming from?” Daydream turned her head to see me.
I pointed to the left and just ahead of us. “Over there. But why look on just a hunch?”
“Because you never have ‘just a hunch’ when it comes to this place,” Daydream replied, as she started in the direction I had pointed.
“Oh goody. We’re back to cryptic answer.”
“Not really, but you’ll understand later. For now, if you have a ‘hunch’ follow it.” She continued moving through the mist by her horn’s pink glow.
“Right,” I responded very …um…reassured.
We walked for another half hour before Daydream paused. “Are we going the right direction?”
“I don’t know. I heard it too long ago.”
“You know. Stop listening and feel it. Where is someone in trouble? Open your heart, Grace,” she said patiently.
“Right,” I responded with the same sarcastic tone. Open my heart? How in the world was I supposed to do that? My heart heard only a single song. Wait! Maybe that was it! The song was the key. I closed my ears and focused completely on the song, letting it fill me and flow outwards. My feelings turned to match the mood of the music. Together we explored through the mist seeing everything clearly as my heart and the song merged into one. And that’s when I saw him.
He looked to be my age and height. It looked like we both had brown hair and blue eyes, but while my build was like that of an athlete, his was more like a gladiator. I gasped as I realized he was chained to the ground. Slowly, I looked around him to see what had put him there. Instead, I found a horse hobbled fifteen yards from him. The horse was a midnight black proving to be the exact opposite of my pearl white Daydream.
“I can see them!” I informed Daydream pointing in their direction. “They look like they’ve been chained.”
“They?”
“A young man my age and a black horse.”
“Nightmare,” Daydream said grimly.
“Who?” I asked still watching the pair.
“My mate.”
I lost them. I whipped my head around to look at Daydream. “Your who?”
“My mate,” She replied still grim. She looked back at me and smiled. “What? You didn’t think I would have one?”
“Uh, no! That’s not it. I’m just surprised that’s all.”
Daydream sighed. “I have not seen or heard from him in many weeks. He went to go to look for the man you saw him with and never returned. Now I know why.”
“Who is the guy he’s with?”
“You’ll see. How much farther are they?”
I closed my eyes and putting my heart into the song easily this time we flew away. Within seconds, I saw them directly in front of us. “Straight ahead. Not too far now.”
Daydream went faster. In minutes, Daydream’s horn lit the place where the young man laid chained to the ground. I hopped down and Daydream put her horn on the lock causing it to fall away. As I helped him to stand and then supported him, Daydream went to help her mate.
“Are you okay?”
“I will be. Thanks. You don’t happen to have any food do you?” He asked, weakly.
“Yeah, but you need water first. Here, sit down again. Steady now. Okay.” I reached into the pouch at my waist and pulled out some bread, cheese, and a fruit and nut mix, followed by a bottle of water. “Here, drink this first. It’s not much, but at least it’s nutritious.”
I sat next to him and waited while he ate drank and ate. Glancing over, I saw Daydream and Nightmare getting reacquainted. I looked back to the young man.
“What’s your name?”
“Hunter. Thanks for the rescue.”
“No problem. I’m Grace. What are you doing so deep in this mist?”
“I’m trying to reach the mountain and my sister.”
“Your sister?”
“Yep. I have this twin I’ve never seen or heard from before.”
“How can you not know you have a sister?”
“I’m an orphan. I was raised in the foster system and moved around a lot. I don’t know anything about my family.” He admitted easily.
“Wow. That’s harsh.”
“Eh. It’s life.”
“So, how did you find out about her? And why here would she be here of all places?”
“I don’t know. About three and a half years ago I started feeling really strange. I would get weak suddenly, not be able to focus and I was constantly hearing this haunting song. I ignored it for years, but I finally figured I had nothing to lose, so I followed it into the forest where I met Nightmare. He said he was created for me. Which is weird, but I can deal, after all not much of this place is normal. Anyway, he had this scabbard for me, which had a parchment inside.” He paused to tug the scabbard from where it lay beside him and pulled out a yellow and brown parchment. “I think it’s a verse from the music I keep hearing.” He handed her the paper.
On it were the words:
The twins reunited will bring peace to the land,
Sister and brother united for our cause,
With goddess and hunter our world, Dream Mountain,
In happy abundance forever will live.
“Wow.”
“No kidding. I know I’m the hunter since that only makes sense, which means, I have a sister. I believe my sister has the name of a goddess. My guess would be a goddess of the forest.”
“That would be cool. What is the cause it talks about?”
“Peace and happy abundance, I guess.”
“Well at least you have a little more info than me. I don’t have any words to the song.”
“You hear the song too? Are you sure you aren’t missing a brother?”
“Sorry. I was an only child.”
“It was worth a shot. So, what’s your story?”
By the time I had finished explaining everything. Daydream walked up and nudged my shoulder.
“Are you ready to proceed?”
“I guess so.” I looked at Hunter and Nightmare. “Are you guys coming with us?”
“Sure, we both want to get to that mountain and it would be nice to have some company. Especially if we get into more trouble.”
“How did you end up like that anyway?” I asked as we mounted up.
“It was bizarre. We stopped for the night, I lay down to get some sleep and when I woke up I had these mounds of dirt locking me down. Nightmare too. We tried all morning to get away. It was hours later that the dirt fell off to reveal the chains. We got the picture then that it was hopeless.” He paused looking like he was deep in thought, than he swung around to look at Daydream. “Your horse is a unicorn.”
“Yep,” I said proudly.
“Nightmare, you wouldn’t be keeping something from me, would you?” He asked suspiciously.
“What do you mean?” Nightmare’s voice was deep and had a spooky quality too it.
“It just seems like… well… if you were a unicorn you’d tell me right.” He finally spit out.
Nightmare laughed and stopped walking. “Get down, Hunter, and stand in front of me.”
“Okaaay.” Hunter stood in front of his stallion.
Nightmare smiled. “Now, command it.”
“You want me to command you to become a unicorn? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No.”
Hunter laughed, but stopped weakly when I shot him a “He is so seriously not kidding” look.
“All right then.” He looked into Nightmare’s eyes, “Nightmare, Unicorn!”
It was like an invisibility cloak fell away from the deep blue horn that suddenly appeared in the middle of Nightmare’s forehead. Just as quickly as it appeared, it began to give off a deep purple light which mixed and
intertwined with Daydream’s soft pink one.
“Awesome!” Then Hunter exploded. “So why am I just now finding out about this? You could have had us free seconds after those chains were on!”
“Yes, that is true. However, you would not have learned anything and we would have upset the mountain’s timing.”
This unicorn was as stuck on the learning thing as Daydream!
“What are you talking about?” He asked still on a disbelief high.
“The mountain clearly knew that it was not the right time for us to reach it, so it delayed us.”
“First of all, you are giving this mountain way to much credit. Secondly, why is now the right time?” Hunter asked as he climbed back onto the stallion.
“This land has many secrets all of which will be relieved to you. Just not right now.” Nightmare answered, as we started moving again.
Hunter looked at me. “Is she this bad?”
I shared a smile with him and patted Daydream’s back. “Worse.”
^^^^^^^^^^
Chapter 3